{"id":512566,"date":"2026-01-13T06:41:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T06:41:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/512566\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T06:41:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T06:41:14","slug":"allies-against-slavery-honored-for-work-to-end-sex-trafficking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/512566\/","title":{"rendered":"Allies Against Slavery honored for work to end sex trafficking"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Gay Donnell Willis, Jacob Geary, Angela Thorne and Chad Frymire<\/p>\n

The Champion of Freedom Award was presented Monday to Allies Against Slavery by the North Texas Coalition Against Human Trafficking<\/a> (NTCAHT). A luncheon hosted by Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Gay Donnell Willis was held inside the Flag Room at Dallas City Hall to celebrate the honor. Attendees wore royal blue in recognition of Human Trafficking Awareness Month.<\/p>\n

Allies Against Slavery<\/a> isn\u2019t a shelter or a jobs program or a rehab center \u2014 it\u2019s an innovative, map-driven and data-driven resource to help frontline professionals identify, confront and prevent exploitation.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor over a decade, Allies has been an incredible partner, not only here in North Texas, but across the state, harnessing data for children, mostly through their Lighthouse platform<\/a>,\u201d praised Chad Frymire<\/a>, director of public policy for Dallas CASA and board chair for NTCAHT. \u201cTheir CSE-IT tool is a predictive tool that helps us identify child sex tracking victims. They also provide support with policy recommendations in Austin and with U.S. legislators. They really focus on empowering prevention and helping with prosecution.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Gay Donnell Willis with honoree John Nehme of Allies Against Slavery<\/p>\n

John Nehme, CEO of Allies Against Slavery, accepted the award.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe harness data to illuminate and ultimately eradicate human trafficking,\u201d he explained. \u201cWe envision a future where every community in the country would have all the data that it needs to not just combat this problem but ultimately prevent it to move upstream and to stop exploitation before it starts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nehme said he\u2019s seen many victims of trafficking who exhibited clear signs of abuse during interactions with school counselors, medical professionals, foster parents and juvenile justice personnel, but flashing red warning signs were missed or ignored. Repeatedly, the young people were sent back into the hands of their traffickers, and the chances of rescuing them were lost.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne young woman walked into an ER in a major hospital in Texas six times,\u201d he said. \u201cEach time she walked in, her acute needs were cared for, but no one connected the dots that her injuries were suffered at the hands of her trafficker and her buyers. So, she walked back out the door without that lifeline that could help her exploitation. As a result, she was exploited again and again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHuman trafficking is a complex and deeply challenging issue,\u201d agreed Willis. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t sit neatly in one lane. It intersects with public safety and housing and health and economic insecurity and trauma, and it demands coordination and trust and persistence. No single agency or organization can tackle it alone, and that\u2019s why elevating attention around all forms of trafficking matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Council member Kathy Stewart, Dr. Brita Andercheck, DPD Sgt. Alan Holmes and DPD\u2019s Jackie Laymance<\/p>\n

Willis had high praise for a new program developed by the City of Dallas Data Analytics and Business Intelligence Unit in tandem with the Dallas Police Department. The daily, automated update informs detectives about high-risk potential victims: children who are currently missing, under the age of twelve, have run away more than four times in the last year, have a prior case of exploitation and\/or have been missing for 30 days or more. The result has been an astounding 50% reduction in currently missing and\/or runaway juvenile victims.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was floored when I heard about their work on real, meaningful disruption that can keep a course of a life from being changed and derailed,\u201d Willis said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince the dashboard has launched, my guys can lock in and see a currently missing child, and they can go out and try to find them right away,\u201d explained DPD Sergeant Alan Holmes. \u201cIt\u2019s been absolute game changer for my team to be able to go out and recover these children, hopefully before they\u2019re exploited.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want to use data to just admire the problem with statistics,\u201d said Dr. Brita Andercheck, who developed the dashboard. \u201cWe want to use data to create an actionable insight. Sergeant Holmes says we\u2019ve done just that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most powerful moment of the ceremony happened when Angela Thorne rose to speak. She\u2019s a victim of sex trafficking and the author of \u201cUnbroken: A Survivor\u2019s Story.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Thorne was raised in a loving home, daughter of a high-ranking police officer and an attentive stay-at-home mom. After she was sexually abused at age seven and her parents got divorced when she was ten, she became vulnerable \u2014 and predators caught her in their web.<\/p>\n

\u201cI fell into the cracks of my family\u2019s fractures, and the ones who saw me were skilled predators,\u201d she shared. \u201cBy the age of 15, I was a functioning alcoholic, a full-blown cocaine addict, an active cutter, and I had attempted suicide once before. I was screaming with every red flag known to man that something was very, very wrong. But no one had eyes to see. The ones who did saw me as a commodity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thorne is now managing director of Freed People<\/a>, a nonprofit which sends networks of recovery teams out into the most heavily trafficked areas to support both law enforcement and survivors.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlmost 13 years later, by the grace of God, the path was paved, and I had the wonderful pleasure of meeting so many in this room along the way,\u201d she said. \u201cI truly believe that all of the awful things I walked through led me to be in the position I\u2019m in today. I feel it is a true reflection of the scripture that says, \u2018God will take everything the enemy aims to destroy me and turn it for good.\u2019 What once attempted to steal my life is something now I get to crush under my heel every single day. What an honor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Carmen Shelton of Freed People, DPD\u2019s Megan Sykes and DPD\u2019s Chen Yuan<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Mark and Terri Demler of Project Moses, Vanessa Barker and Priya Murphy of New Friends, New Life<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Gay Donnell Willis, Jacob Geary, Angela Thorne and Chad Frymire The Champion of Freedom…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":512567,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,1596,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-512566","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-dallas","10":"tag-texas","11":"tag-tx","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-united-states-of-america","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115886429984989175","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=512566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/512567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}